A traditional camera system includes camera body, lens, electronics to control the functionality of the camera and most importantly the image-capturing media—film. In contrast, instead of using film, a digital camera system usually employs an image sensor made on semiconductor substrate. Typically the image sensor is either a charge coupled device (CCD) or a complementary metal oxide semiconductor (CMOS) sensor. There are several types of CCD sensors, such as frame transfer CCD, full frame CCD, interline CCD and linear CCD sensors. For purposes of an illustrative embodiment, the image sensor of a full frame CCD is discussed for illustrating the effects of a residual signal.
A full frame CCD consists of a two-dimensional array of photosensitive elements of X columns by Y rows. The sensor captures light during exposure and converts photons to electrical charge, namely electrons. At the end of exposure, it starts the readout process. First it transfers all the electrons vertically row by row to a serial of horizontal registers. After each row transfer, the charge in the horizontal registers is transferred out to a sensing node, namely a floating diffusion, and converted to a voltage signal. An analog-to-digital converter converts this voltage to a digital count. A single image capture is completed when all the rows of signals are transferred out and converted. Finally the onboard electronics renders all the digital counts into a digital image. At this time, the camera is ready for the next capture.
A digital camera with a full frame CCD captures a single still image in the following manner. When a mechanical shutter is pressed, a flush cycle with a fixed amount of time is executed to clear out the existing charge in the CCD (see Japanese Patent No: JP62152281 for further discussion). This is because the existing charge, namely the dark current, is accumulated during either the camera power off period or camera standby period. This dark current needs to be cleared out. Then the exposure process begins and charge starts to accumulate in the CCD. The close of the shutter ends the exposure and starts the readout process in which the charge is transferred out of the CCD and converted to a digital image.
The digital camera with a full frame CCD usually only captures still images, not videos. The reason for this is that for the high frame rate required by the video mode, a mechanical shutter is not practical to use. As a result, photon-induced charge continues to accumulate even after the exposure period when the accumulated charge is being transferred out of CCD. This additional charge results in an artifact, namely smear, to appear in the images. Therefore, video capture usually is not an option for a digital camera using a full frame CCD sensor. There are ways to reduce smear without a mechanical shutter (see US Patent Application Publication No: US2002/0186308A1).
However, many high-end digital cameras using a full frame CCD sensor have a so-called continuous capture mode, which allows users to continuously capture several images in a row. In order to get high quality images for all images, several obstacles need to be overcome and they are smear, dark current and the residual signal. The smear problem can be solved by using a mechanical shutter if the frame rate is not very fast. For example, the frame rate for an 8 million pixel CCD operating at 30 Mhz pixel rate is about 0.3 seconds, which is long enough for a mechanical shutter to operate smoothly. Removal of dark current can be achieved by subtracting a dark image with the same exposure time captured at the end of continuous capture mode with the shutter closed.
The residual signal, however, cannot be solved by either a mechanical shutter or a dark current subtraction. It is defined that charge related to the previous image is superimposed on the next image when the camera operates in its continuous capture mode. Referring to FIG. 1A and FIG. 1B, there are shown two scene settings for testing residual signal in a full frame CCD. In both cases, there is a candle 1 on a table. In FIG. 1A, the candle 1 is lit and has a flare 2 while in FIG. 1B the candle 1 is put off and the flare is gone. Referring to FIG. 1C and FIG. 1D, two images continuously captured from these two scenes using a camera in its two-image-capture mode are shown. In the FIG. 1D a residual image 3 of the flare 2 is still visible in the image although in the real scene (FIG. 1B) there is no such flare 2.
When light strikes onto a full frame CCD during the first image exposure, some photon-generated charges are trapped in some pixels due to the crystal defects in the silicon. After exposure, these traps start to release trapped charge gradually. If during the second image exposure and readout, these traps still release charge, the total charge in the second image will be the summation of the charge due to second exposure and the charge released from the traps generated during the first exposure. Therefore, the second image will have a residual image of the first image in it. This phenomenon will become especially worse when the first image has a strong illumination scene such as FIG. 1A.
The residual charge is due to the thermal release of charge from trapping sites in a CCD. The number of traps is exponentially proportional to light intensity and exposure time. Referring to FIG. 2, there is shown the relationship between the residual signal generated at the end of the first exposure and the exposure time for different light intensities. Under light intensity of 0.5 Esat, the residual signal increases from 0 to about 45 electrons for a five-second exposure. Esat is a relative light intensity unit. If an image sensor's output equals to its saturation level when it is illuminated under a light source for a fixed amount of exposure time, that light intensity is defined as 1 Esat. At the same exposure time, the residual signal also increases with the light intensity. At 20 Esat, it reaches about 115 electrons at 5 seconds.
After the first exposure, the traps will release the trapped charge and the process will slow down and eventually diminish with time. Theoretically, by adding infinite flush time between the end of the first image readout and the start of second image exposure, the residual signal will be eliminated in the second image because all the charge in the traps will be released and flushed out during this infinite time before the next exposure begins. However, in the practical use, the flush time cannot be set for too long. Otherwise, a camera user may feel a delay between each continuous capture and that delay may result in missing important scenes.
On the other hand, by setting a predefined maximum-allowable flush time sometimes can cause unnecessary slowdown of the continuous capture process if the illumination of a scene is not quite as strong as to generate a substantial residual signal beyond the camera's tolerance.
Therefore, there is a need for a method to automatically adjust the flush time based on the exposure information of a previous image capture and substantially reduce the residual signal in the next image in a continuous capture mode by a digital camera.